Parts washers have been used for many years to spray a heated washing liquid (usually a solution of soap or other detergent in water) on various products, such as screw machine parts, hardware, and other pieces, which need to be cleaned before further processing or shipment to a customer. Traditional parts washers are slow, expensive to install, and waste water and energy.
Typical parts washers use a turntable which holds parts and rotates about a vertical axis. Such machines use jets to spray fan-shaped streams of washing liquid under high pressure in a relatively narrow band, usually less than 10% of the turntable area. Therefore parts are washed only 10% of the washing cycle time, spending 90% of the wash cycle waiting for the turntable to move them in front of the jets. These prior art machines are slow and require expensive pumps and electrical power supplies to pump the washing liquid at the required high pressure. Prior washers also require steam vent stacks, which makes the washers expensive to install, and prevents them from being easily moved from one work area to another.